Navigating Health Challenges: The Mind-Body Balance with Jill Carnahan

00:00 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Petri dishes of mold. One was under a regular household router for internet and one was a shielded with aluminum. The one that was under the household router produced 600 times the amount of mycotoxins, meaning it felt that threat. Even if we can't see it, that living organism felt the threat in the environment. So as we throw up 5G and Wi-Fi towers and all this stuff around us we have routers in our home and we have Bluetooth everywhere, right? Those things are actually creating a threat to, number one, our physiology, our cells. Our cells can feel that and many people don't notice it because they're not that sensitive. But it also creates a threat if there is mold or mycotoxins in our own body, and so we actually become more toxic or more threatened in that way.

00:41 - Michaela (Host)

Welcome to the Wave Forward, the podcast that dives deep into how technology shapes our health and well-being. From digital wellness to tech innovation, to the effects of electromagnetic fields, we cover the environmental, social and physical implications of technology. Ready to navigate the digital landscape with confidence, set your dial to discovery and tune in. You're listening to the Wave Forward, Dr. Jill. Thank you so much for joining the podcast.

01:10 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

You're welcome. I'm excited to be here.

01:16 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, so I was doing a deep dive into you for the last couple of weeks. I've listened to some podcasts and read a little bit about your book and your blog and I really want to kind of start from the beginning, because I'm like, oh my gosh, this woman's story is insane. I've cried so many times listening to you talk and I feel like understanding where it all began is really, really important. So can we just kind of start there?

01:37 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

You've got it and thank you for that kind of feedback. You know, there's nothing that I want to do more in life than inspire people, and what I learned in the early days, which will lead itself to my story in a minute, is story, is our connective tissue right? And I will tell you. You would never know this, but I'm actually a closet introvert, like I would just like walking with my puppies in nature all day long if I had my choice. But years ago I realized, oh, I have to be out there and tell the story and of course it's rewarding and I love what I do now. But that's the framework, because it was kind of a reluctance in the beginning. So my story starts back on a farm in central Illinois.

02:14

I was one of five children. I was the second oldest, oldest girl, you know, strong, hardworking, German, Wwiss family and wonderful, wonderful brothers around me and all that good stuff, and I, you know, really kind of started to learn about health and healing just through the fact that we had this half acre garden and grew our own vegetables, and my mom was a retired nurse, and so I had ingrained in me the fact that light, nutrition, connection, family, good fruits and vegetables, all were the foundation of health and healing. But I did not know as a young girl that I was a healer. I also didn't know that I was an intuitive, empathetic woman and I kind of grew up in this family that was very stoic, hardworking, don't complain, don't show weakness, and so I took on that mentality and I became a bioengineer before medical school and very, very analytical.

03:06

But there was this whole other side of me that was waiting to be born and that happened through suffering and illness and kind of going really deep and saying who am I? And how do I want to show up in the world? So all of a sudden, at my third year of medical school, I found a lump in my left breast and I was not really worried. Once again I was in the driven, very masculine energy trying to finish medical school and in fact my first thought was I don't have time for this. I don't have time to check out a stupid lump that's going to be benign anyway, right. But at the insistence of my husband at the time, I got it checked out ultrasound mammogram and everything was highly suspicious. But everybody was still like well, Jill, you're 25, right, 25 year olds, don't get breast cancer.

03:47 - Michaela (Host)

That's so wild, how young you were.

03:49 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah, 25. Me too I was like, literally it was days after my 25th birthday, so I was almost like just out of 24, which is crazy. So very soon I realized it was aggressive cancer. I'll never forget that day, where I was sitting, and I always say you know, when I'm talking to audiences or anything we all remember, like when the World Trade Towers fell, or where we were, who we were with, sometimes a song on the radio, or if we've lost a loved one and got that phone call, or these things that are like life changers.

04:16

They're moments that change our life forever. They're so impressioned in our memory and for me this was one of the first of those moments. And I was sitting in a chair in my condo and got a call from the surgeon and she said Jill and of course in medical school the surgeon and the doctor are also your professors and you're cut like you're, you're with them, it's not just this person that doesn't know you. So she calls me personally a couple of days after the biopsy and said Jill, I don't know how to tell you this, but you have aggressive breast cancer. She actually told me that I was the youngest one ever diagnosed at Loyola University in that year. Now, since then, there's been a lot of young women who've been diagnosed.

04:57 - Michaela (Host)

I'd imagine that's changed a lot.

04:59 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Sadly, like now, I'm not unique at all, which is great and horrible. And so, anyway, diagnosis of cancer. So my life, just in an instant, like, was wow, what do I do? And at that moment now I'm 20 plus years post cancer and vibrant and healthy, but at that moment you don't know if you have six weeks or six months, or you don't know what your lifespan is going to be. And it was the first of many lessons where I had to dive deep into the heart of a healer on both sides. So not just as a physician, but like what am I going to do as a patient whose life is on the line. And I dove into the research, tried to find the best protocol and one of the big compassions that came from that is the understanding that, number one, there's no black and white. We all want medicine and answers to be like X, Y or Z or just choices.

05:44 - Michaela (Host)

Tell me exactly what to do.

05:51 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

And it's not that way at all. It's so gray and if you really dive into it it's so gray it's almost like holy cow. They're basing this on 1% survival. Wow, that's crazy.

05:56

So I learned that in the journey and learned that, well then I can make some choices that may not be conventional, and I literally designed from the chemo the type of agents, how I got it. Everything about my treatment protocol was unique, like I was like well, can we do this instead? Can we do this instead? And here I am surviving. So it obviously worked. But I had conversations and I kept finding, when there was a doctor who completely disagreed or wouldn't support me, I found someone else, and I think again, that's a lesson to the listeners If you are facing something difficult, find someone who is a collaborative person, who can really find what works for you, and not that they can't give you medical advice. You know, cause they're going to maybe know things that you wouldn't know, but that collaboration is so critical. And for the patient to feel at peace. Moving forward is also critical, because if you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right, your body's not going to heal.

06:45 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.

06:46 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

So learned a ton in that and had aggressive chemotherapy, lost all my hair, radiation, multiple surgeries, and then nine months later I'd been out of medical school for treatment and I was coming back in and like, okay, and once again that German work ethic was like well, you've taken nine months off. Go right back in it. In hindsight, what I would tell that 25 year old about to be 26 is take some time to heal, you know? Let your body rest.

07:13

And I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to rest, so I went back, probably in hindsight too soon, because I was still sick, I was running fevers, I was a mess, and yet no one knew it. I just worked and pushed and tried until one day I passed out in the ER and then I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. I was taken into emergency surgery and came out and the surgeon was like well, Jill, you have Crohn's disease. So that was very all early in life and lots of crazy, crazy diagnoses.

07:37 - Michaela (Host)

So do you think that the Crohn's disease came from all of the treatment that you had? Like you know, cause you hear it's like people get one thing after the other and it's like, how does that happen?

07:49 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah. So now and that's always been my like, that's what I love is to solve mysteries, even in clinicals. So even for my own health I'm like, okay, why did that happen? What happened? So I'll kind of frame some of the factors for you all and for the listeners. I grew up on a farm with lots of pesticides back in the 80s and so that was just the norm for corn and soybeans in Illinois and obviously that runs off into well water, which is what we drank, and so I probably got exposure not only in my diet and food and water and in the air that we breathe, but also my mother who was, you know, on the farm and worked there and everything, I think, probably in utero.

08:30

The year that I was diagnosed with cancer, 2001, there was a Canadian study that came out and said in cord blood of infants so brand new babies they tested the blood and said how many toxic chemicals, and in the brand new newborn infants there was over 200 toxic chemicals 20 years ago. So it shows you how much we all maybe come into the world with a toxic load. So that was a part of it. And for me, my genetics don't detox great. I have some genetic snips and issues, and so it was almost like those toxins probably started to affect my DNA even as young as five or six, or very, very young, or even in utero, because when you get a cancer at 25, that cancer cell has been starting to grow and divide maybe a decade or more before. So that means like 10 or 15 or even before was when the cells started to go bad.

09:15 - Michaela (Host)

I remember being so surprised when I learned that, like by the time you know, you have a cancer that's like the size of a grain of rice. It's already been completely running through your system for at least 10 years and I was like whoa.

09:29 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Crazy, right? So then I'm like, oh well, this started way before. So the farm and the chemicals and all that, which is why one of my most passionate advocacies is environmental toxicity. And how do we live in this environment and also take care of our bodies and detox, Because for me, that was the instigating factor for my cancer. So then the cancer um, of course I had aggressive chemotherapy.

09:50

One of the chemotherapy agents, Cytoxan, is known to induce leaky gut and it actually does that on purpose, because part of the issue is when you have permeability in your gut. So instead of having like tiles on the wall with the grout all intact, like the grout goes away and things leak through between the tile and so all the food that you eat, all the bacterial coatings that are in your gut, can leak into the immune system and create inflammation. Now in cancer, I think the reason why that drug works is that it actually induces an immune response, an aggressive immune response that can also fight the cancer. So it's almost purposeful no-transcript immune system into the bloodstream. My body had a more aggressive response to that infiltrating bacteria, and so then that can cause collateral damage which presents as lesions on the bowel, lumen, with Crohn's, and that's kind of how it happened.

11:06

So I think the chemical load to breast cancer and then some of the chemo and my underlying genetics and the fact that I didn't even know it but my diet was so wrong for me at that time, Like again, I was like I was trying to be a vegetarian in a family that didn't know what a vegetarian was and so there was no like you know. Really make sure you get these proteins and say it was mostly like pasta.

11:26 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, as long as it's not meat. Yeah exactly I remember those years in high school when I did that, like I was still eating all the candy, right, right.

11:35 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

All the sugar. And then the sugar gets worse because you're eating so many carbs and yeah hindsight. I mean for me, I definitely eat meat. Now I don't eat red meat. For me that was not a good diet because I had high gluten, soy processed products and lots of sugar.

11:54 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, I love that. I know it's like I love and hate it, because you know you never wish this upon anyone. But if I was going to go get care from somebody, I would want to have gotten care from somebody who's gone through something and has like because you almost started your journey as your own guinea pig.

12:06

It's not like oh well, let's try this and find out. It's like no. I carried myself through this and this is one of the reasons that my mother is the only person I trust with my health, because she's carried herself through MS and she's carried herself to open heart surgeries and she's found that path herself, and so it's not like, oh well, I think this could work, let's try it on somebody. It's like, no, I've, I've done this and so, like that, there's that confidence that builds and being able to help other people. So it's like the other day I got bit by a Brown recluse. I started having a really horrible reaction and I was like, okay, like I was on my way to go to the ER and I was like I'm just going to go to my mom's first.

12:47 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Oh, yeah, totally.

12:48 - Michaela (Host)

I feel like it's so important to have those people. So what is your suggestion? Like for people who don't really know where to start, like when my mom wasn't living here, when she was living in Maine cause we're in Texas, it was really scary to not have anyone that I really felt like I could trust to make a good, educated call on anything.

13:10 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Oh, this is huge, right. I remember here I am in medical school, diagnosed with cancer, and then I'm like, oh, what do I do for treatment? And they're like, well, you could do this or this or this. And then I would ask questions like, well, what's the increase in mortality? And they'd be like, well, there's really no difference in mortality. I'm like, well, why would I do that? You know like asking those questions.

13:28

And then I went to the library and this is back when there was real libraries with real like we had to check out the journals.

13:34 - Michaela (Host)

The internet was quite simple, right?

13:35 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

I mean, yeah, so back then. So for a couple of weeks I studied and looked at all the studies and what I realized is, oh my goodness, this is so not black and white and I'm just speaking to like you or that when you say for the listener it is freaking, overwhelming. And I was in medical school with the knowledge to navigate that information and I thought how in the world does the average person make good decisions?

14:01

So here's my answer: this is why the book is science and faith. Left brain, right brain it's like how do we bring these two worlds together? Even conventional medicine, integrative medicine in everything that I do I'm like wait, you can say both and not either or. So I was all here trying to make a decision and what I learned over the last decade or two is the very best decision. Yes, you gather knowledge. There's nothing wrong with left brain or analytical mind, but the true decisions that will last you a lifetime and make the very best of your life whether it's relationships or work or finances or your health is here.

14:37 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, quick break in the episode, you guys, because I got to tell you about the amazing sponsor, Aires Tech.

14:42

Aires Tech creates cream of the crop, top of the line EMF protection devices that do not interfere with your signal, but all of their technology is actually backed by peer reviewed, patent and published research that has been going on for almost 20 years.

14:55

They were originally funded a couple decades ago by the military to create a medical device that would help protect men and women who are working on radio signal towers without interfering with the signal, and have since become a consumer product as we have become more of a technological world. They're also used by professional athletes like Tiki Barber from the NFL Giants and Macy Barber from the UFC for performance optimization tools. You can go to their website, airestech.com, and check out some really amazing studies where they've done some EEGs to show how these devices are affecting your baseline brain activity. It's really really cool. I personally have one on me right now near me, because I have my phone, my computer, my camera, everything going on all at once in an office building where everyone has their own Wi-Fi, so I don't mess around. Check them out, airestech.com. Use code INTUNE I-N-T-U-N-E 30 for 30% off your entire order.

15:46 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Because I found that, as you lean into, okay, should I do chemotherapy or not, should I get an antibiotic for the spider bite or not, or whatever things you think about, right, you can really literally tune into your body. And again, it took me decades to learn this because I was all living above the neck in my head, all analytical, like those old computers that had the DOS systems and stuff that can only process of maybe 1,000, 2,000, 10,000 people's data at a time. Our heart space, our intuitive space, can process millions upon millions of pieces of data instantaneously, if we allow it. So what I had to do first is get in touch with my body, because our stomach aches, our headaches, our body is always trying to communicate with us, and not only for illness and wellness, but for decisions and for people that are right for us and wrong for us.

16:35

And how many times have you heard that person that like, oh, I started dating this person, I knew they were wrong for me, but you know, and they stay for years and they end up. Maybe it's abusive, maybe it's just not emotionally healthy, maybe it's not supportive, and they knew in their heart but they ignored that data, or maybe they got sick in that relationship and there was a piece of it that was the stress of that relationship. Or again, a job that you stay in where you're like. Every day I come home with a headache.

17:01

Those are signs that our body's telling us. So back to my original, when we tune in to the decisions that are right, relationships, finances, health expand us. They don't contract us. And when I think about going forward okay, what if I make this decision? You either have a sense of peace and calm or you have a sense of angst and fear.

17:22 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

I use that all the time to make decisions because my body often knows. And again, I might still read and research and do all the data gathering, because you can use both and then tune into my body and say what is the right thing here. And I didn't know all that back then. But I think that's so critical and this is where the patient is empowered, because the doctor might say this is right for you and you have to do this thing or this.

17:46 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.

17:48 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

And I love what you just said. Something really important there. You have to, you must. Those are fear words.

17:53 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.

17:54 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

And the best decisions are not made in fear. So if someone's telling you you must stay with me, you must do this treatment, you must stay in that job or you're going to lose everything, whatever things that are telling you and you're like, oh, that doesn't feel good, or you're doing it out of fear, it's probably not the right direction. And when you go to that love or that abundance or that like trusting the universe to take care of you, it's usually the most scary thing in the world, in a sense of like, like going down the rollercoaster. It's like when you get to the top of your click, click, click, click, and then you're like, but it's so full of joy. And so there's a difference in that fear, because that fear is like anticipation and excitement about the future and you don't know what's going to happen.

18:35

You have to let the outcome, just like the roller coaster. And then you're like, oh, this is so great and so terrible, and so terrible.

18:42 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, I learned the power of intuition immediately after having my son, because we had him at home. So, my mother is a retired nurse, so we have a similar story.

18:55 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

I wonder if she was medical with you.

18:56 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, I'm one of five as well, and so I really grew up with my mom. I'm the youngest,and my mom's open heart surgery journey kind of started when I was like four years old and then MS, so it was like after me that she kind of started going through all this which completely changed the trajectory of her entire life, and so I got to witness her kind of unlocking this intuition as time went on and like really starting to understand that there's this whole other way of doing things.

19:27

And then you know from the physical side and then you understand from the mental side and like you know the power of the mind and like. So I got to really kind of grow up a little bit of like both ways. When I became a mother I really found, okay, it was like almost like immediately that I had to start making those decisions Cause my son, he started spitting up green bile and I at that point was very anti-hospital, honestly like I just would pretty much take care of anything and everything ourselves, especially if it was just me.

19:58

I wasn't a mother at that time and so I just remember, like you know, kind of waiting it out and really talking to my mom and then talking to her sister, who was an MD, who also kind of took this path, and we were kind of discussing what, what we should do, and so then me and my mom kind of like, okay, we think that there might be like a twist in the bowel or something like that, like we need to take him in.

20:16

Well, when we went to the first hospital, it was an ER and it was, like you know, adult ER, and they tried to diagnose him with pneumonia and they wanted to do like a spinal tap and they want to do all these weird things. And I just remember having that moment where they're, like, you know, first off you had a baby at home. They immediately look at you like you're a horrible mother. And then I just remember I was in this big red poncho, you know, like I looked like I had just come out of the woods and I'm like, can you just stop? Can you just stop? Give me like - his vital signs are fine. Like we have 30 seconds right? We have 30 seconds to just breathe and think about this.

20:54

We have 60 seconds to breathe and think about this. And I just remember, like after the whole journey cause we ended up leaving that hospital and going to another, and they were completely going in the wrong direction. And I remember going into the next place, which was the children's hospital, and they couldn't figure out what was wrong, but they wanted to go in on his stomach and I just remember knowing that that was the right choice, even though it sounded crazy.

21:17 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah.

21:17 - Michaela (Host)

It was like, this is crazy. They want to like operate on him. They don't even know why, but I just remember having that moment checking in, knowing that was what the issue was, and like moving forward. But then we had to deal with the you know, the backlash of leaving the first hospital and ama and like all of that stuff. But so that was my introduction to motherhood. Was like you like if I could give anybody any advice is like, if you have 30 seconds to check in with yourself, give it to yourself because the answer is there. Especially in those big moments, because there is so much fear and everyone wants to move forward really quickly and like, and sometimes maybe there are those moments where you're just like okay, I just have to trust. But it's like you have to be able to just look and see like, is there a 30 second period where I could just breathe and just like know what the right thing is?

22:12 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

I love that story. That's a perfect, perfect example of like that, and even in the cancer thing. That's that, that pause.

22:20 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah.

22:20 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Cause, even in a crisis, you have seconds to pause.

22:23 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, there's always seconds, yeah.

22:29 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

But I can't. I mean, maybe there's a situation you couldn't, but normally because that, even that just seconds of check-in is so critical, and I remember thinking, even now when I talk to patients with cancer, like what should I do? I need to make a decision by next week. My appointment is next week. I'm like, okay, wait a second, do you really have to make a decision by next Tuesday? You might.

22:43 - Michaela (Host)

And well then, there's also like cause I've experienced this witnessing in family too where it's like you felt fine before you went in and got this diagnosis, so like let's just pause. You don't have to take everything they're giving you right in this moment. Make sure that's really what you want to do. Make sure that's really the path you want to take. Cause right now you feel good, but now there's the fear and the fear.

23:04 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yes, yes, it's that. And the stress of the urgency, which really isn't always urgency.

23:10 - Michaela (Host)

Right, yeah. So we lived in the hospital basically for six weeks after that, and you know we moved our whole. I was like no, we're going to make this a home. I had oils, I had little pots that we sent and the most amazing thing was it all happened so divinely because it was like I knew I was supposed to have him at home and because I had him at home he was considered a “dirty baby” so like he couldn't go into the NICU, he had to go into the PICU. So we never left. I was not leaving my baby. I can't imagine having to leave your baby. There were so many times they tried to give them fentanyl. They tried to do all of these different treatments that we were able to ask questions.

23:57 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

How awesome that you had, so you had them in your room versus in a..

24:00 - Michaela (Host)

Right, yeah, we never left. Me and my husband were there at all times. If I went to the house to shower, he was there. If, like we cause, I just was like I need to be a part of everything that's happening, I can't because with fentanyl that they try to give him my husband was the one who was like, I had no idea. Cause at the time it wasn't really a really well talked about thing and that became a part of like the social awareness after that. But he was like, Michaela, like I don't know, like I think we should look into this. It's a very medical malpractice. You know, he kind of started and then I'm like okay. So then I started asking a lot of questions about it, just to try to push him off, push him off and then the final moment.

24:42

This was like I know. I was like I know she'll appreciate this because I can hear it in your stories but it sounds so woo, woo and crazy. But basically there was like a final moment. I was like the fifth doctor resident. There was one of the schools that said you know, this is like torture, we need to give him the fentanyl. And my question was if we give him the fentanyl, then you have to keep the ventilator in, because then he's going to stop breathing on his own, and it's just going to start the cycle because, now he's going to be in pain because of the ventilator and then you need to give him more fentanyl.

25:10

So I just didn't understand, like it didn't make sense and I was like but he's in pain because of the ventilator, not because of the surgery. Like this is what I can, we can tell that that's what's at the time, or whatever. And I'm like, you're going to, like I'm doing everything I can. If this is what's going to have to happen, we're going to have to push through this. We're going to have to make it. I'm trying to hold off, but like if you could just start breathing, you know…this whole thing, we were like having this whole dialogue and then this doctor walks in. He was on his last round before he got off work and he comes in and he turns the ventilator off and he asks the nurse, when's the last time he's had fentanyl?

25:59

And she's like we're about to give him his first dose and he was like no, let's see if he can breathe on his own, because we don't want to start a cycle where he has the fentanyl and then has like literally this entire time I've been asking you've been saying. So she had it in her syringe and he stopped her from giving it to him, and within 20 minutes the ventilator was out, the catheter was out, all of these different tubes that they have hooked up because, specifically because of the ventilator, and we were holding him and I just remember being like who was this angel that just walked in? I had never seen him before it was wild, it was wild.

26:33 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

It is a beautiful story. I mean it's years, because I, like, I believe so deeply in those divine moments. Like those are miracles. I mean I do have a faith, though, obviously, but still like those things in anyone's life, and if we pause to be like thank you, and then I can talk to your son, like there is no doubt that that, that mother intuition and that connection, that soul connection, like I believe he heard you, I really did.

27:03 - Michaela (Host)

Right, like, and so my husband. He didn't really grow up very religious, and I grew up kind of really religious, where then I went through a stop where I was like I don't even want to talk about God because, like it's so scary and you know, I went the opposite way and I'm kind of finding my relationship again, yeah, but I just remember that like even in that moment we so we didn't know what was going to happen, because whenever they went in to go do the surgery, they're like thinking it was going to be 45 minutes, it could be just like a little twist ended up being that he had no middle intestine at all.

27:29

He had a top and a bottom and they had, to like the resident that was there, came up with how to fix it because they had never done a surgery like that before, and so it ended up being, you know, five hours and surgery and we're having to sign all these documents and you know they're they're not really giving us updates. So I just remember the moment where I was like we have to go somewhere now and we need to like pray. And I, cause I also had the moment, cause I'm very like no. Like this is not the story, this is not. And then there was the other of like you have to to surrender to the story.

28:04

If like it is possible that he might not make it, and that you have to decide that you're going to be like oh, it was one of those moments. We'll never be the same, like us together. You know, we grew up, we knew each other since we were 13. We've been best friends. We'll never be the same after that moment, because there was a like, a whole different level of trust that we just had to fall into together and like decide that no matter what happens that we were going to make it through together and that we were going to be present.

28:34

We did all the things. You know we were like because I was able to breastfeed him before he went in and that was the other beautiful thing, so he didn't have oral aversion because he started on the breast.

28:44

So then whenever we did like that, we did the colostrum and we did like the little in his mouth, and we were bathing him in spring water and we were just doing all the things that we could do and, um, he ended up having a g-tube and a central line, never using the g-tube. We got it removed when he was about six months old wow and the the surgeon was like dude.

29:03

The only other time I've had a surgery even similar to this, they ended up having a central line for two and a half years and having a G-tube for the rest of their life because they had oral aversion. And you know, it just went a completely different way, yeah, so I'm like it really makes you wonder, had he had the ventilator longer, what the circumstances would have been like. But we don't wonder about that because we just trust the process.

29:22 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Okay, exactly, that's the whole moral of both of our stories is like I love what you just said, too. Is that surrender piece. Even with the breast cancer. I had to be like, okay, whatever the outcome, I'm going to, and it's like trusting, like you had. A couple of moments you shared there were very deeply intuitive, like I think surgery is right, even though it seemed weird, and I think that the fentanyl is wrong, whatever else they. They showed up and I feel like that's always how, if I have a portion of the book where I described like stepping out on one stone, you can see ahead of you. You know this next right step is there and that's all you can see.

29:57

It's like a dark fog and all you can see is the next step and you're like, okay, I know, this is the right thing, I have no idea what's up ahead. And then the surrender to whatever is going to reveal itself. But when we step forward and make that decision and intuition or faith or whatever it is, and then the next thing reveals itself, and then the next thing that's part of the surrender and the journey ends up. When we look back is like, holy cow, how did this happen? And it's more beautiful than we could have ever designed. And it kind of encourages us to do it the next time, to surrender again and to do it again, and to do it again.

30:30 - Michaela (Host)

Yes, also there's. There is like a period where you really have to get to know your intuition again.

30:38 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah, Cause I had to really like from here after 40, I was like, oh, what is that feeling? Oh, that's the you know.

30:44 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, like. So how would you tell someone what that is?

30:51 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

So, first of all, this has everything to do with health, because our body has always given us signals. And if I would look back at, I mean I got married at 21. I inherited three beautiful stepchildren and so I became an instant mother and then, within a couple of years, I was in med school. So, like it was insane what I was doing raising kids, med school, new marriage. I mean, just if I look back and if I look back again in order to do that level of what I held myself to, I suppressed the body because I was like, shut up body. I've got work to do, right? So, if I had a stomach ache or if I had a headache or if I was tired, I knew how to push through, I knew how to just make it happen, and I guess that's a form of dissociation and it allows us to survive, right. But because of that, I had suppressed all those things, and I have no doubt that the cancer, the Crohn's, some of those things where my body like screaming out hey, you cannot keep this pace up forever and we are going to force you to check in and slow down. And so how do we get reintegrated? Well, first of all, I mean just practically, you can put your both feet on the ground. I always put one hand on my heart and one hand on my belly and close my eyes and I just feel into that internal environment. You can actually think about spaciousness between your rib cage or spaciousness in your head, or thinking about that spaciousness in your body and parts of your body, and that's a real good technique of mindfulness, to kind of check in. And then you start to be like what does it feel like? And you start to just like tune into sensations and you might feel a little buzzing in your chest or you might feel a little bit stomach, you know, gurgling, or you might feel, and all those are kind of normal things. But as you start to practice and it's kind of in a mindful way, whatever works for you that just happens to work for me you start to get re-engaged with the body and instead of like ignoring those signals, you start to tune in. And then what you find is like you and I found, is those internal signals will often give you a direction, a guide, and so you might know here this is the right thing to do, probably with based on the data, and then you can check in with your body and like what does my body feel? And same with illness and wellness, you're like, oh, something doesn't feel quite right.

32:52

And I have heard 101 stories of patients that go into their doctor and you know, say, a middle-aged woman, and they're like oh, doc, you know I'm really really tired, I'm having trouble getting out of bed, I'm starting to have hot flashes or night sweats, or I'm really exhausted, I'm getting migraines, whatever thing. And the doctor does a panel of basic labs and says, well, everything looks normal, you must be fine. Or even worse. They'll be like would you like to try an antidepressant? I think you're depressed Now. Depression is real and I prescribe medications. There's nothing wrong with that.

33:20

But to assume that because you don't see objective data on the labs of a very basic panel, that someone in front of you is like just depressed, that's a leap that is actually gaslighting, that is completely not acknowledging.

33:34

So part of this. As a woman, that example, or as us, we have to trust that we do know what's right and wrong and we have to advocate for ourselves, whether it's with a physician or a family member or whatever boss, and say no, no, no, this actually isn't working for me. I need your help, or find someone who does support you, because we are given feedback that does not agree with our own body signals and we acquiesce to that feedback because we think, oh well, they must know better than me. No, no one knows better than you in your body. I mean, you might get medical advice, but one knows your body better than yourself and you better. So one of the things that I've loved doing in the clinic is like really trusting that the patient's story is valid and even if I'm like, huh, that doesn't make sense, I never say that because I'm like let's figure out why. Like, let's figure out there's no, like that doesn't make sense. It's like let's figure out why you're feeling that way, because it does make sense if that's how you're feeling.

34:27 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, okay, so can we explain? Now let's get into the science because, like people listening, you can think what you want about this topic. But now we're going to talk about the science, right, but okay, can you? I heard you explain this on a different podcast, like the science, because I think it's hard for some people to wrap their head around. You know, I've done a lot of interviews with people who experience like electromagnetic sensitivity and we focus a lot about that on the podcast. But usually the story starts with either they had Lyme that was triggered because of mold, because you know, and it's like they have all these things.

35:01

That happens just like this, like this avalanche of sicknesses and it almost makes it seem like people are hypochondriacs. Can you explain what happens, like what is toxic overload, and why is it that people experience everything all at once?

35:21 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah. So I always frame functional medicine in the realm of toxic exposure or toxic load and infectious burden, because usually at the core of the complex chronic inflammation, immune dysfunction, autoimmunity, immune deficiency, whatever things are actually manifesting in the world, it's a combination of those two complex factors that are playing in. So first let's just describe toxic load, because I always say that people are born with a bucket capacity to detox. So we have this bucket. Someone like me was poor genetics and lots of toxic load was like a small bucket, and when that water level whether it's five or 15 or 55 starts to fill up and spill over the top, it will manifest with disease of some sort, and commonly the top three are cancer, autoimmunity and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or ALS or those kinds of things, and there's many more, but those are the biggest things that present with that. So, first of all, toxic load is very real and we're all living in this toxic soup. It can be a little depressing, but it's simple to just start with simple things to unload that toxic. So for me, at 25, with cancer, my, my bucket was obviously full and starting to spill over the top, and so that concept is important because, whether you're a clinician looking at a patient in front of you or you're a patient who's suffering, you have to think about how do I decrease that toxic load? Because as soon as we get back margin at the top of the bucket, the body can heal. The body can do things that are amazing and we have something we even call reversible autoimmunity, where someone who, with an autoimmune disease, does like me with Crohn's, no longer has it.

36:49

When we go to that toxic load and bring it down and when you mentioned chemical sensitivities, EMF sensitivities, I know immediately if you come in and say I walked down the detergent aisle in the store and I get really sensitive, I start to sneeze, I have a headache, I'm really tired. Or they say that I'm super sensitive to EMFs in my environment. I put my phone to my head or I can't have a router in the same room or those kinds of things, I know immediately that their bucket is full. Like that's just the thing that tells me oh, toxic load, bucket full, because there would not be multiple chemical sensitivities. And that sensitivity, whether it's EMF or otherwise, does not happen until your system gets overwhelmed, and so I know that I have to reduce toxic load.

37:34

Now, that could also be mold exposure, which, of course, is my expertise. Yes, heavy metals, parabens, phthalates, pcbs, pfas, which are polyfluorinated compounds like Teflon, gortex, which are now everywhere and they're forever, so they don't break down easily. But then, on this side, I mentioned infectious load, and that would be like your Lyme disease, your Epstein-Barr, these other infections, even brown recluse spiders carry something sometimes so let's hope and pray that you don't get anything there.

38:05

So what happens is when that toxic load buckets full, you're overloaded, your system can't fight infections as well and I always say if you were to test a thousand, 10,000 people on the street for Lyme disease, for example, you might find 30 to 50% I'm just guessing in my clinical experience have Lyme disease and they're walking around like there's so many people who've been bit by ticks or vectors that could carry Lyme or any of the co-infections and they're fine.

38:31

So what is the difference between the person that comes in with horrible pain and fatigue related to Lyme and that person who's on the street that we just accidentally tested and found out they had it? The difference is that toxic load because, for example, someone who got bit by a tick at 12 years old and they are walking around in the tick, the spirochetes in their system, but it's dormant because the immune system is keeping it in check. They're fine, but they go into, move to a new home and there was water damage unbeknownst to them and they're in mold. Mold produces mycotoxins. Mycotoxins suppress the immune system and all of a sudden they're having terrible headaches and neck pain, exhaustion, brain fog, and that's partially the mold. But that might be partially an old infection that is reactivated or allowed to pop up because immune system can no longer keep it in check.

39:16

I love mentioning chickenpox because everybody knows chickenpox. You know you either had a vaccine for it. Nowadays or, like when I was a kid, I actually got the chickenpox at five or a year. And what happens with that is it lies dormant in your system and you don't ever get chickenpox again, hopefully. But you might be 60 in surgery, lack of sleep, stressful year and you get shingles. Shingles is the chickenpox from five years old that reactivates. So everybody knows about shingles and chickenpox same virus and that you know, shows and proves that these things lie in your system.

39:46

Epstein-barr is a common one too, where you get mono at 19 in college and then later all of a sudden you have chronic fatigue like post COVID. Covid is an immunosuppressive virus. So this toxic load, infectious burden, is at the heart. And then you mentioned what about those people who are super sensitive and how do we explain the science behind it? Their toxic load is high and so they don't have that margin. If we have margin, we can walk down the detergent aisle. We get some exposure to parabens, phthalates and things, but our body's able to detox and get rid of them or not accumulate. But when our toxic load is high we tend to react more to our environment.

40:22 - Michaela (Host)

Okay. So yeah, I have a family member who got their gallbladder removed and was experiencing a lot of different symptoms so that they ended up removing the gallbladder. And now, she is so sensitive to everything. I mean when she's like no one believes me because she listened to one of my podcast episodes and then started calling. She's like I think I have hypersensitivity but no one believes me Like every time I'm at my house, cause she lives near airport, and then she has three wifi routers because she runs a business from home and they're like up in the mountains of Montana and and she's like I can just like my ears are ringing all the time and like I can feel, like I feel something hitting me and she's like and everyone thinks I'm crazy. I'm like you're not crazy. You got to do something about this.

41:08

Yeah, gall bladder, I can talk about that because basically our detox system. So when we have, say, we had mold exposure and it's in our system, like our tissues, from years of inhaling mold, to get that out we need to go backwards, which means we need to mobilize it from our tissues where it's been stored, into our blood, and then our blood is filtered by our kidneys, which goes out in the urine and our liver, so that we have these filtration systems already in place. And so then, if we can mobilize, like sauna, dry brushing, glutathione, we mobilize that toxic load back into the bloodstream and then the body is filtering it. The liver is the first line defense. The liver, basically, phase one, takes something that is fat soluble, turns it into water soluble phase two and squeezes it out. And guess where it goes? It goes into the bile, which is stored in the gallbladder. So most of our toxic load from this process phase one, phase two of the liver gets thrown into bile and that gallbladder is holding that bile and squeezing it out appropriately at meals. So I'm guessing in her case she doesn't have that sack to hold the bile, so the bile is constantly dripping out. There's no regulation of it.

42:13

It can still work, but there's probably some issues and even the fact that she had her gallbladder out. There might've been stagnation of bile, lack of production of bile. There might've been a precursor that led to her having cholecystitis or inflammation of the gallbladder that led to the surgery. So there might've been precursors.

42:27

But that bile flow is everything to do with detox, because if you have poor bile flow or you have no bile flow number one you'll get stagnation in the small bowel and you get overgrowth of bacteria and all kinds of things fungus, bacteria because that bile has a sterilizing action in the bowel. Number two we should have a 95% efficacy rate of reabsorption, meaning when that bowel goes out into the gut, lumen, then it gets reabsorbed. So we just have this merry-go-round and recycling of bile, which is how it should be. But think about this: If your bile is loaded with garbage and toxins and all the stuff you've accumulated and it just gets recycled and recycled, you're toxic and you can't get rid of that. And this is why we often use binders, because binders have a charge that will grab onto that bile and kind of escort it out and actually pull some of the bile out through the stool, which decreases our toxic load.

43:21 - Michaela (Host)

You're blowing my mind right now. Okay, wait, going back to what you said. So you said cause we. So that's what happened with my family. My family just moved and I knew that we were getting mold exposure, but we didn't own the house and there was a lot of issues there. And so I was just like we just have to get out. Do you think that, like, if you, if it's something that you kind of know that you were exposed to, is there things that you should just start immediately? Or do you think that, like you should get testing and so that you know exactly, because I know sometimes if you're doing certain things and not doing other things, then it can even make situations worse. So, like, do you always recommend testing or do you think there's like low hanging fruit that people should be starting with if they're having symptoms?

44:02 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

So, first of all, I just want to say this is so fun because you're asking such great questions. I'm like, yes, this is so fun to talk about because it is really good and really practical for people listening who might've gone through it or have someone they love is going through it. So first of all, think about a boat that started, had a little hole, and you're in the river and you can't get out of the river for another hour and it starts leaking. Well, you can bail out and get yourself by, give yourself time and even though it's leaking, you're not going to make huge progress because you need to get that boat out and fix it, the patch, the boat, the hole. That's the ultimate solution. But if you need an hour or two and you need to buy time, bail it out. It works right. So if you're in a house and you're in mold exposure, bail it out. Meaning, take some binders, take some binders, take some glutathione, it will not hurt you. It just might be that you're taking on a little water and you're getting rid of a little water and you're keeping things even or you're even making progress.

44:51

So that's number one obviously, getting out of exposure, ultimately, or fixing the problem but, like you said, with landlords and things that can be so complex and we don't know whether it's financial or otherwise. I have to work with people on all spectrums, where they can get out or they can't get out, or and I always deal with what we have in front of us. Number two I love testing. I'm a data person, but anyone out there who who has an issue or suspects an issue, you can do a ton without testing, so you do not have to have. What I would say is, if you're unsure, if there's an exposure, I always start with you can do this at home yourself a dust sample, which is a QPCR, so that's a great way to test.

45:26 - Michaela (Host)

Those are the little Petri dishes.

45:28 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Those are different. Those are more air samples and it's literally like a Swiffer cloth. They'll send you the dust. A test is a company I like and they just send you a cloth and then you wipe down different areas in the house. It'll tell you how to do it and send it in and they look for DNA in the dust of the mold. So I find that's really accurate for kind of historical exposures. Then you still have to find the root, but that's a really great way to start.

45:50

The petri dishes are okay, but some of the most toxic black molds will almost never be in the air, so you might get a false negative, excuse me, meaning like it looks pretty good and there's really a toxic situation and I find the dust does a little better. So you can start there. If you don't have a doctor or don't have an expert. Ultimately, if there is an issue, you need an expert to figure it out and help you remediate, but you can start. And then the other thing I was going to say is, if you know or suspect exposure and you can't mycotoxin test or whatever else, you can start.

46:18

Really simple and I love giving people this advice because anyone can do it and it's clean air, clean water, clean food Like everybody has access to those three things. So clean air, you need to get an air filter, open your windows, get airflow, because even if you are in a house, you can't leave and you can open the windows. Dilution is the solution to pollution. So if you do that airflow and get a little air coming in your house, you're going to feel better.

46:43 - Michaela (Host)

And sorry to interrupt you. Do you ever recommend ozone?

46:47 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

So ozone can be, so, say a house. So for example, after the fires we did hydroxyl machines and ozone in our office because there was so much smoke damage. And if someone really had a house that had a moldy smell or whatever, ozone will clear that up. But number one you can't be in a house with ozone, it'll burn your lungs, so you'd have to do it without. And number two, that reaction of the ozone to the particulate that is toxic can create reactive oxygen. So if someone really has lung issues, even if they wait eight hours and go back in, they might actually have more issues like burning or damage to the lungs if they have sensitivity to reactive oxygen. So ozone's tricky there is a place for it.

47:25

Or say you have books like a library that you needed to clean and you can't really wipe down that paper. You might be able to ozonate books or paper and get it more clean so that you could bring it back in your house. So there is a place for it, but I have extreme caution.

47:37 - Michaela (Host)

Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, that's good to know, cause I've heard there's a machine called hydroxyl that is a little safer.

47:41 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

It's a little less common, but I like when my smoke damage office would needed a remediation, I chose hydroxyl over ozone because it was safer and actually more effective, even though it's less common.

47:54 - Michaela (Host)

Yeah, okay.

47:55 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Clean air and also, yeah, clean water, and then just getting filtered water mineral water is hugely effective and just making sure you're not drinking out of plastic and that your water is actually filtered, your showers are filtered, cause again, that's an input. So, clean air, clean water, clean food, making sure that organic, non-gmo as much as possible, because those inputs are part of the bucket level, and so, even if you don't and one thing you alluded to before is, do you have to know every last toxin in that bucket? And the answer is no, because it's almost impossible. So, yes, sometimes there's like metals versus mold, and the truth is, if mold is an issue that rises to the top, you have to deal with that before you deal with metals or other toxins.

48:32 - Michaela (Host)

Anyway, that's wild. Yeah, we noticed that after we moved our immune system, like we've been in it for so long that, like once we moved out, I got sick immediately. After we moved into like a new environment, my kid got sick immediately, and then you know we're like oh my goodness, is there stuff going on here? I'm like, I know, I know, I think that like our body was so overloaded that like this new terrain is like…

49:02 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah, there's something called unmasking and that happens in two ways. One is what you mentioned. So when think about this, if we're drowning in the water, the bucket levels like say, we're in the bucket, we're like, oh, it's so high and you start to bring it down and it's like here that masking happens because, like I said, you can't detox. If you're drowning in water, your bucket's full, but when you bring back margin, all of a sudden that margin allows you to bail out the boat and get detoxed. But it also allows your immune system to start to function. And most of the times when you get a virus or a cold or something, it's actually the immune response to that virus that makes you feel sick the cytokines.

49:34

So, if you have no response, because your immune system is completely on, you know, not working, you're going to be like I don't get sick, whereas you really do. You just can't fight it. Versus afterwards, when your immune system is working, you're going to feel more flu-y, more malaise. That's your immune system working.

49:51 - Michaela (Host)

Yes, my son has had four weeks of just constant drainage, so we've just been doing everything we can to help him along. But that was kind of my thought of his immune system must be just kick-starting again and now we're seeing he has sensitivity. Yes, like, so anyway, that's super, super interesting. Okay, how did you get into like EMF, because I know, like I don't know if you I'm sure you've talked about this at some point but like the kind of the EMF? Isn't there a lot of connection there with the EMF and mold?

50:22 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah, so EMFs, I've written multiple articles and on that we'll make sure and share those for your listeners, because they are all about the great products that Aires Tech has, but they're my favorite. I just have to say that. So, basically, again, I mentioned the articles because if you really want to know the science, I talk about the calcium channels and all of these things and reactive oxygen, and there are actually physiological mechanisms that are very real and there's genetics that make certain people more sensitive to EMFs versus others. So this is something you can actually phosphatidylcholine channels and things. If you have issues there, you're going to be probably more sensitive.

50:59

But what happens is if you I'll say mold, for example, because that's one that does commonly sensitize people to EMFs, so you take on your breathing and mycotoxins in a toxic environment and they're going into your tissues. Mold is very sensitive. It's a living organism, right, and so if you have mold in the sinuses or mold in the body, it reacts to environmental stimuli. So even if you can't see the router, the mold fills that threat when you go close to it. So whether it's mold in your house that grows faster because there's high EMFs and creating a threat for that living organism and it's trying to throw out.

51:30 - Michaela (Host)

Wow, I love the way you're explaining this, okay.

51:33 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah, I know it's crazy, but it's so true. So, literally, like they did, petri dishes of mold. One was under a regular household router for internet and one was a shielded with aluminum. The one that was under the household router produced 600 times the amount of mycotoxins, meaning it felt that threat. Even if we can't see it, that living organism felt the threat in the environment. So as we throw up 5G and Wi-Fi towers and all this stuff around us and we have routers in our home and we have Bluetooth everywhere right, those things are actually creating a threat to number one our physiology ourselves. Our cells can feel that, and maybe people don't notice it because they're not that sensitive. But it also creates a threat if there is mold or mycotoxins in our own body, and so we actually become more toxic or more threatened in that way, and then, of course, in our house too, it can become.

52:19 - Michaela (Host)

So your body starts literally working against you at that point how do you take your power back?

52:31 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Yeah. So it's so critical because really, the obviously the detox is huge and that's why this all goes together so well and that's why I'm such a fan of Aries Tech products and things like that, because we need all the help we can get in this toxic world, right, like we are so swimming in toxic soup and it can be depressing, but if we start with clean air, clean water, clean food, we put some protective devices on, we maybe do PEMF at night, we have I have a grounding mat in my bed. Like I do all these things because I want to perform and feel optimal and I think in this world with our toxic load and the stresses and everything like that, it's critical to have things that we have as habits to keep us healthy, and this is one of them. That's just like so simple, right.

53:07 - Michaela (Host)

Oh, I love that so much. Okay, really quick, can you give us the rundown of your book and your movie and where to find you?

53:14 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

Thank you. This has been so fun. So my book Unexpected Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine, Sciencec and Faith you can find on my website, jillcarnahan.com. You can find it on Amazon, anywhere you find books where they're sold, and I hope that if you do decide to take a read or listen on Audible or Spotify that you will enjoy it and it'll inspire you in your healing journey. Everything Jill Carnahan is at my website, jillcarnahan.com. I have a podcast, I have a link to the movie which is drpatientmovie.com. You can also find that link in the website and again, that's a documentary on my own journey and the lives of my patients. And really, how do we navigate all this stuff we just talked about? So jillcarnahan.com is the main hub of everything.

53:54 - Michaela (Host)

And you're still treating patients right.

53:57 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

I am yeah.

53:58 - Michaela (Host)

You're a busy woman. I love that. I love that so much. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. I hope that you inspire more doctors to take this route, because I feel like it's really difficult to find people like you. You're the little unicorn, so thanks for being the unicorn.

54:18 - Dr. Jill (Guest)

You're welcome. Thanks for your great questions. Thank you for sharing your journey. That was powerful, your story, and I think I mean I mean I enjoyed it. You had me crying, but it was very, very powerful and I think it is the bottom line for you guys listening out. There are answers and there are ways to heal. And if you don't find an advocate, look again, because keep going, find family and be your own best advocate.

54:40 - Michaela (Host)

Yes, yes, thank you so much, Dr. Jill